If you like this story, consider signing up for our email newsletters.

SHOW ME HOW

Newsletters

SUCCESS!

You have successfully signed up for your selected newsletter(s) - please keep an eye on your mailbox, we're movin' in!

Michelle Spence-Jones (center)

Photo by Erik Maza

"They don't know this nappy-headed child of God has her armor on!"

Wonky TV dramas have nothing on the real-life soap opera that is Miami politics. Take Michelle Spence-Jones's acceptance speech upon being re-elected to her city commission seat in November 2009, moments before being led away in handcuffs on grand theft charges. The thing was a work of art that would have made The Wire's indignant-when-indicted Sen. Clay Davis blush with pride. Spence-Jones spoke in third person, quoted the Bible and Don King, and vowed to return like a vanquished villain at the end of a Batman sequel. Of all the choice quotes, though, our favorite was the one where she called herself "nappy-headed," obliquely referencing racist shock jock Don Imus and thus equating prosecutors with the cowboy-hat-wearing schmuck. If race-baiting were an Olympic sport, even the mean German judge would be waving a perfect 10 for this one.